


Long Explanations, Old Mistakes

by Teawithmagician



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Feels, Breaking Up & Making Up, F/M, Post-X-Men: Days of Future Past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 08:12:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10567224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: In the post-canon of the Days of the Future Past Rogue is with the Mutant Brotherhood, leaving Logan for Remy LeBeau. Anti-mutant movement is growing strong, Magneto and Professor X ally once again for the time of government negotiations. It's the time Rogue who broke up with Remy meets Logan again, not knowing for good or for bad.





	

**Author's Note:**

> *Headcanon is partly based on original Rogue's storyline, but mostly on cinematic Universe  
> *Elements of all the X-men movies can be found  
> *Like, super-angsty  
> *I love Rogan

1  
  


 

Rogue notices Logan when he enters the restaurant. Weary red and golden colors of the lobby surround Logan like spurts of flame. Rogue leans over noodles, piercing it with the eating sticks, and asks herself if she’s going to believe it’s accidental.

 

Logan walks at Rogue’s table, and Rogue moves her chair, getting up. If she sits, he will look down at her. She doesn't like it that way. There are no one in the hall but her and the waiter, and the old smoking lady in the lobby, owner or administrator possibly. She doesn't like it either.

 

“No gloves, huh,” Logan says instead of “hello”.

 

“Do you know how to talk to people?” Rogue looks Logan into the eyes.

 

“Will you need another menu for the man?” a waiter asks. He is at the age Rogue first met Logan, pale, thin like his mustache, with a rapid look of black lacquered-like eyes.

 

He grabs a menu from the next table, moves to Logan, and rushes back. His face is puzzled and mildly terrified. He mutters something about coming up to them a little bit later and runs to the old smoking lady at the scratched dragon table at the entrance.

 

“You've got a new ability to scare people away,” Rogue squeezes the back of the chair. She would throw it Logan into the face, moved left to avoid the hit of the claws, and press her hand to Logan's neck to calm him down and leave.

 

“It's an old one,” Logan sloughs. “So, how is it with the Brotherhood? With Gambit?”

 

“Fine,” Rogue ignores second Logan's question, smiling crossly. He has no right of asking her that way, and he knows that. Still, his face darkens, filled with blood.

 

The exchanging of looks is worse than a fight. Logan's look is cast iron heavy. He slouches forward a bit, and it doesn't look like a bad habit, it's more like a poster of a beast ready to attack. Rogue knows her position is better as she has a window behind her back, and he has only a dark lobby with smoking women slowly getting out of her table with a young waiter holding her elbow.

 

Light hits Logan right into the eyes, and Rogue can see him as he is: sturdy, beastly heavy, brawny like a bull, with big tanned arms, veins bulging like ropes. Gambit has strong arms, too, but they are more exquisite and much thinner. He is more sinews than muscles and more agility than strength.

 

He has been, at least. Since they've parted in Marseilles, Rogue never wants to see him again.

 

“What did Magneto promised you? A new world and you'll be the kings and queens of it? People licking your butt instead throwing sticks and stones at you?”

 

Logan's eyes are frozen blue. The sky over a snowy field, what they are like. When he smiled, and he didn't smile often until they had things to laugh at together, the frozen blueness was accompanied by two rows of sharp white teeth. He was so charming when he smiled and talked to Rogue, she thought he must have been no older than twenty-seven or twenty-eight.

 

“People becomes aggressive, and you know that. We must protect ourselves and protect the others. You know that some Deltas disappeared. Dead or kidnapped, it's all the same. How long you are going to sit at school and wait for humans to decide our lives?”

 

Rogue starts to speak passionately, though she wants to stay calm. The grin on Logan's face tells her she makes a mistake.

 

“He tried to kill you. Do you think yourself a dog who lick the hand of a man who beats the shit out of it?”

 

“I've never thought myself a dog. That's why I didn't stay with you,” Rogue says Logan right in the face. The pleasure of speaking out is more of an erotic kind. The feeling starts in the chest, slowly moving down like a living flame.

 

The chairs just explode. Logan chips them with his both hand, kicking the table so hard it chops off the wall a piece of plaster. Rogue throws her chair into his face and Logan crushes it easily, claws crumbling the wood. Rogue moves towards Logan rapidly, the collar of his checkered shirt is unbuttoned so she sees where's to hit.

 

“If you crush my furniture you must pay!” a piercing voice makes Rogue stop half a way. Logan unwillingly puts down his arms. The old woman with a cigarette in her mouth, held by the terrified waiter, stand in several steps from them, looking outraged.

 

“You are the mutants,” the waiter mumbles. It's hard to understand if he is frightened or enchanted.

 

“I don't care who they are, the must pay for the dinner and the furniture,” the high pitched voice sounds to Rogue like a chainsaw. The woman looks even smaller out of her table, with pinks eyes and parchment skin, she is hardly noticed inside of her dress, repeating fiercely, “Pay for the dinner and for the furniture, then go.”

 

Rogue takes a deep breath. It's good that the old lady negotiates, she doesn't call the police or the other departments, nastier ones. Most of the Brotherhood won't bothered paying on the reason people rarely bother to treat mutants well, but the lady was right, it was her place and their damage.

 

There were more fights to get into, tougher than scaring the life out of old restaurant owner and her teenage waiter.

 

“Logan, pay for the furniture you've broken,” Rogue says. She doesn't look at Logan, and she is surprised to hear his irritated breathing and the paper rustle.

 

“Here.”

 

Rogue moves her head to see Logan poking the money into the waiter's apron pocket. She hasn't really thought it would work, but it did.

 

“That's better,” the old Lady nods, and Logan sniffs angrily. The sound of him sniffing makes Rogue cross the hall, hit the doors and rush into the street. Chinatown looked like a paper lantern in the rain in the autumn. Red, golden, dark green and black, all in the colors of the forest yet with no trees at all.

 

Why did Rogue though it would be easy meeting Logan again? She wants to go, instead, she stands before the restaurant's doors breathing deeply. Logan looks so familiar it makes her brain aches. She remembers all those little and big things about him and she can't convince herself she doesn't want to know how he's been doing. And if he still remembers not only the worst.

 

The doors behind Rogue's back hits open. She turns around and sees Logan, straightening the collar of his jacket. The expression on his face is nasty. Rogue puts her hands into the pockets, and Logan abuts his fists into his waist. The people are passing by under the transparent umbrellas. It starts to rain again.

 

“I will buy you a beer,” Rogue says. Logan looks at her sullenly.

 

“You buy me whiskey. A lot.”  
  
  


2  
  


 

“So, how is it going with Magneto?” Logan asks. The bar is as dark and seedy as the weather and Logan's face. They had to walk through two blocks to find a place as dreary as this one. Rogue thinks it reminds her about how they met.

 

Rogue drinks whiskey and soda, and Logan looks at her with contempt. He has never got the idea of mixing whiskey with something else. Rogue looks into her glass and thinks she is tired of saying the things she is supposed to say instead of what she really thinks, especially with Logan.

 

“The same it must be with Xavier,” she says, wiggling the whiskey and soda in the glass. “It starts with you thinking you've found the ones to fight for freedom with. It ends with you can't even act on your own, you every time need to coordinate your every sniff every now and then. Worse than coordinating yourself is coordinating the others.”

 

“It's all the time everywhere,” Logan knocks over into his mouth at least three fingers high whiskey and pushes the glass further on the counter to make the barman fill it up again. “Every army and every fight, and you have helluv officers to tell you how to die. I'd better work alone, always.”

 

“But you are still with Xavier.”

 

“Yes, I do. That's better than be with Magneto.”

 

Rogue feels slightly drunk and covers her glass with her hand, shaking her head when the barman approaches with the bottle of whiskey after filling Logan's glass.

 

“No, it's not,” Rogue looks into the counter decisively. “Xavier is a hypocrite. He tells you not to cross the line when crosses it. He gets into your head, pretending he knows what's better for you. When it appears not to be the better, he tells you it;s your choice. Magneto or Mystique never do that. They just say what you've already known” we don't protect the humans, the protect from them.”

 

“Magneto and guys are radicals. You know what all the radicals do? Asking right questions, giving mad ass answers.”

 

Logan puts his hand into the jacket pocket and takes out a cigar. He bites off the end of it and spits it on the floor, reaching for the lighter he carries in the front pocket of his jeans along with the truck or bike keys. These are one of the things Rogue is destined to know.

 

“Tell me Professor is better if you believe it's so. Tell me it's not like how I told with him and with X-men,” Rogue demands. He puts the lighter to the cigar, and Rogue grabs his wrist.

 

They both shudder. The barman sighs and taps his finger on the pointer “No Smoking” over the counter, though delicately enough to have a chance not to be noticed. Rogue hold Logan's warm hairy arm and doesn't feel like void absorbing him. She knows if she lets her thing out, Logan will start to scream in pain, his veins turning black and pulsing. She doesn't want to.

 

“Wow,” Logan says in a weary voice. “I've heard of how it worked out. Never seen it with my own eyes though.”

 

“I believe Xavier will be the one to ruin it all,” Rogue says, letting Logan's arm go gently. His warmth sticks to her fingertips, the feeling is distractive. “He believes humans won't reap us apart in the laboratories, trying to make a cure or a weapon of us. I'm not a frog to cut open, neither are you.”

 

“Have you ever been a frog in a laboratory?” Logan twitches the corner of his lips. He takes a drag from the cigar, ash pouring down the counter.

 

“It's no smoking here,” barman says desperately. He looks nervous, and Rogue asks herself if he's seen the news, and the woman with a lock of white hair standing next to the man in an iron helmet, or the beastlike fighter who held the police down with not a single injury just because he told so.

 

Hank McCoy promised he would do everything he could to negotiate, that the new law was more than discriminative, it was socially vivisective. Mystique said she would have negotiations of her own, and Xavier said that he asked her not to do that. With all due respect, Charles, you are not the one telling me what to do, she answered. So we all will wait, Magneto said calmly. Rogue waited for more orders after the meeting, but there were none, or not for her.

 

“Soon we will leave,” Rogue says.

 

Barman shrinks back a little, licking his lips nervously. Logan lets out huge circles of gray smoke, not even listening to them.

 

Rogue gets up from the stool, tired of all the time changing the places just because somebody is too afraid or nervous of their presence. She just wants to talk, yet Logan puts his hand on her shoulder.

 

“The lady said, soon,” Logan says indifferently, putting his fists on the counter. Barman nods.

 

“If you remember, I've been in the laboratory. It was when I tried to get rid of my mutation. They've never helped me though. But they got interested in it. When I left the school with Remi, and later left Remi, I went hiding because of those people, they searched for me. They've found me worth investigating.”

 

“You know where these ones are from,” Logan moves his claws a little. Rogue knows barman is looking, his hands under the counter. There must be a gun there, a pumping gun or something of the kind. The feeling gives her tickling under the skin, remembers her of a careless touch she can calm the barman down.

 

“Knowing they can find you and use you, use you once again, as a weapon, like you had no heart or soul, why do you think Xavier is the one to choose? Will he really defend what you are, or will he negotiate even being vivisected?”

 

“Look here, kiddo. People use people, people use mutants, mutants use mutants. See how it works? I also know the harder you hit, the harder you hit back. Magneto is going to kick the whole world, d'you know what the world is going to do next? I want to be left alone. Not to mess with stuff too often. And. You know, I'm getting accustomed to being seen like a beast with no brains or feels. That's what you've done, kiddo. Exactly so.”

 

Logan puts his cigar out into the counter. The barman jerks to the gun, but Rogue is faster. She jumps on the counter, outstretching her hand.

 

“If you have seen me and him on the news, you know what we are capable of. So don't. Just don't,” Rogue says. She tries to sound calm, but anger still rings in her words.

 

Logan throws money on the counter, getting up from the stool. Rogue jumps off the counter while the barman still sticks to the wall and takes out the wallet.

 

“Take your money,” Rogue says. “This time I pay.”

 

“I've already paid”.

 

“No, it's my turn.”

 

“I said, I've already paid,” Logan snaps at her, and Rogue raises her voice, “And I said, it's my turn.”

 

Logan moves deeper into the bar, he is searching for the back door and Rogue follows, listening to the sounds of the scared barman, who seem to act like a good boy.

 

Logan opens the door, the grayish daylight still blinds. It smells like rotten garbage and piss, some of the garbage cans are turned upside down, scraps and tissue paper lying on the ground.

 

“Logan, I've never taken you for a beast.”

 

“You've cheated on me with a boy with shiny hair and smile. Pretty one,” Logan barked.

 

“I've cheated on you with a man who was ready to listen to me when you wasn't.”

 

“You've always told me you didn't like all these relationship talks.”

 

“But I needed them. From you. With you. You didn't give it to me. And I did what I thought was right.”

 

“What you thought was right should have been talking to me,” Logan hollered, turning to Rogue.

 

“I couldn't read your mind.”

 

Logan looked at her with sheer anger, when he is this angry, he shows his teeth even not thinking about it at all.

 

“I thought of you sometimes, if you want to know,” Rogue says. Logan breaths in through his teeth.

 

“Should I feel better or fucking what?”

 

“I don't fucking know,” Rogue jumps off the porch and walks down the lane, Logan isn't following. Now she hates herself for being weak, for telling him so.

 

“Hey,” Logan calls, Rogue doesn't look back, “I have that cottage in the mountains. Going where this weekend. Come with me. We wait till Monday in any damn way.”

 

“It's all over now. It's over and we got over it.”

 

“I got over many things, you know”, Logan makes a hard, dry laugh. “I haven't seen you for a few years. What's what in having some time together?”

 

“A huge mistake?” Rogue says bitterly. Logan doesn't answer. The smell of garbage makes Rogue want to throw out. She walks out of the lane, listening for the sound of Logan's steps to approach.

 

“Okay, I will go with you. But we will do it as friends.”

 

“Okay,” Logan takes out another cigar, looking slightly different when the previous one. “These new cubanos are shit, old ones were better.”

 

“Like friends, Logan,” Rogue repeats, looking Logan into the eyes. Logan nods.

  
  


3

  
  


Logan drives pickup, dusty green one. Rogue throws her backpack into the open trunk before Logan takes it from her.

 

“Can you once in your life wait for me to be fucking polite?” Logan asks, and Rogue reminds him, “Like friends, James. Shut up and get into the cabin.”

 

“I am not supposed to growl, spit around and grind metal with my teeth all the time if I am more bestial than your friends,” Logan snaps at Rogue. She must think he is in a bad mood, but he doesn't look at her when he speaks. That means he's got something different on his mind.

 

Rogue opens the door and gets into the cabin, so does Logan. They look at the safety belt, Logan throws it aside and Rogue twitches her lips. Once the rammed the front window because of this habit. Rogue used to fasten the belt, but in Brotherhood she used teleportation more often than cars.

 

Logan drives masterfully, stirring the wheel with the natural-born chill. Rogue never saw his nervous while dealing with cares. Horses and dogs used to get mad when Logan is around, but metal and tire rubber seem to like him, or he seems to like them in his own way. Back in time, while traveling through Canada, Rogue saw Logan calmed by the road. So maybe it was the road or the moving that pacified him so much.

 

There is so much garbage inside Logan's car – empty food packages, beer cans, napkins, cigarettes, change. There is something soft under Rogue's feet, looking down she sees green and black. That must be one of Logan's shirts. Rogue abuts her elbow into the door and turns the music on.

 

The radio is wheezing and crackling. Logan outstretches his hand to change the station, but Rogue is faster. Their hand hit each other at the radio, Logan jerks and loses the wheel for a moment. “Holy fuck,” Rogue screams, grabbing the wheel. The car drifts, returning to the road. This takes seconds to Rogue to take control.

 

“I'm ok,” Logan demands the wheel.

 

“Sure?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Rogue moves back to her seat and Logan takes the wheel. Radio finds the station by itself, the DJ is talking about the show Metallica announced in Vegas. Rogue presses her hand to her forehead. She is Gamma and she is not responsible for such accidents, but still, she believed she regained control and such things sometimes happened.

 

“It's ok.”

 

Rogue raises her head.

 

“It's ok,” Logan repeats. “I'm alive. It has been worse. Pull yourself together. We have whiskey to drink.”

 

Whiskey rings in the trunk. When Rogue saw how much Logan takes for a weekend she asked if he is inviting brothers-in-arms from every war he has ever fought in. Rogue bought two bottles of Coca-Cola. Co-Cola, Logan said, and Rogue nodded, well, yes. Co-Cola, he remembered her saying it.

 

“As I was going over the Cork and Kerry Mountains, I saw captain Farrel, and his money he was counting,” a low, sturdy voice started in the dynamic. Rogue drummed her fingers on the door, she loved that song, she loved to sing it at the road.

 

She was eighteen then. Her hair was brown with a red glimpse in it if look from a right corner. She was wearing white T-shirt and jeans, and Logan was in a singlet, smiling, smoking. She smoked a cigarette, and when Rogue pushed him with her shoulder, he gave that cigarette to her, and they kissed. She was such a child, and Logan was no better. He was a hundred years old, still not remembering it.

 

Rogue hears Logan's humming the song while driving. She doesn't have a feeling she shouldn't be there just because she is in Brotherhood. Magneto relied his life upon her, Raven's friend. Rogue admits the situation is questionable, but Magneto was friends with Charles Xavier, and Raven was close to them both. Magneto promised Xavier back in time never to attack his school, and he kept his promise. That doesn't mean Magneto would treat humans like Xavier did, yet the promise was the promise.

 

Rogue has a strong feeling that something was going out. Magneto wouldn't sit and wait, and Raven clearly had a plan. It took months for Rogue to start to think of Mystique as of Raven. The first time they met, Mystique looked at Rogue as at a piece of X-gene meat. Later on, when Raven left Brotherhood and Magneto to solve some things for herself and meet Rogue on her ran from mutant hunters, she explained it wasn't exactly so.

 

Rogue didn't understand a thing and thought her mutation was a disease, something to be ashamed of. She was raw, small and stupid and Raven didn't take much interest in her, she always spent her time only on persons worth it, and Rogue wasn't ready to participate. They didn't save lives of each other when they met for the second time, but Rogue has changed, and she was willing to know more about how it was to be a mutant woman.

 

One day Raven told Rogue Rogue reminded her of herself. Powerful but naive, with a lot of energy and will, and no idea how to spend it. Raven said she could help Rogue with that if Rogue spared her of stupid questions, would watch and learn. Rogue said she didn't consider her desire of clear things stupid, and she wanted to learn. Raven said okay. It was less than Rogue wanted to hear, but her okay was more like Logan's okays: no waste of words. Information to consider. If you were ready, you got it.

 

“I remembered first meeting you,” Logan says. Rogue turns her head to him, he is looking at the road. She turns away as his profile gives her familiar tremble. Something in her stomach, no, in the lower parts of her belly. Like claws gently tickling her skin.

 

“How was it?” Rogue looks back at Logan again. She has a strong feeling he looks at her as she turns away. Now he is watching her with the corner of his eye, too. That's a familiar feeling, it makes the tickling harder, and Logan must feel it, too.

 

“You looked like a weirdo,” Logan smiles, and Rogue laughs. “You looked like a lumberjack. By the way, your shirt smelled. How often did you wash it?”

 

“I don't remember. But I got into the snowstorm once or twice. It counts.”

 

“Logan...”

 

“Once we drove for a week with no shower at all. You smelled too.”

 

“I didn't have a choice.”

 

“I didn't have it either. It was pretty cold with no shirt on, and it was my only.”

 

Rogue laughs, she remembers the time. The moment they realized they need socks was the moment they couldn't find any socks that weren't dirty or torn. They either overeat or feed on leftovers till there were nothing left. Or what was left stink. Logan liked junk food, could sleep for more than 12 hours a day if he had a place, and was really fond of stupid jokes. He looked like metal but was soft on the core. They shared that softness, and solitude, too. It was nice to have something with whom you could comfortably keep silent for hours.

 

Memories are nice as the views change. Fields turn into the forest, the road goes up and becomes curvy, yellow signing points with deer appear, there are fewer gas stations and burgers billboards. The trees climb up the hills, and the hills grow taller. Rogue opens the window and breathes in the pine scent.

 

“Do we have gas enough?”

 

“In the trunk,” Logan says. When he puts his hand down. Rogue wishes it is on her knee like it used to be. Yet no, she doesn't. Or does she? Rogue turns away and looks into the window. She hasn't been with Logan for a few years, she has already forgotten the feeling comes back to her. They doesn't talk but she knows exactly that he's in a good mood, now he will make music a little bit quieter to hear the road and rub his neck.

 

He feels better than in the city, and she feels better, too. Rogue remembers that feeling of coziness was like walking around in pajamas and stompy favorite boots, and it was no wonder, no excitement, no tenseion. Remy was different. He could make her tremble with a look, he could take her breath away with a kiss. Unpredictable, she never knew what was going on in his head. They were more or less of the same age, he was like a breath of fresh air after Logan, who had never been that gripping to her, and Remy – he had never been a man to rely upon.

 

Yet it was adventurous with Remy. Until Rogue stopped being an adventure to Remy and became what Logan had been to her – a comfy suit which you could also use to run some errands of your own. A very comfy and useful suit to get into once you're back home. But when you ain't home, you needed another suit, a fashionable one. Rogue remembered Remy bringing her roses with glowing buds, everyone ready to explode yet kept in the moment before the outburst. There were things Remy did like like nobody else, still the one person he loved the most was himself.

 

“Memories, huh?” Logan asks. He takes the turn on a wiggly ground road.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Of your fuckboy.”

 

Rogue always forgets it has two ends. She knows how Logan feels, and Logan somehow knows how she does feel.

 

4

  
  


Rogue drinks coffee with whiskey, smoking a cigarette. Logan smokes cigars, yet Rogue knows there's always a pack of cigarettes in the kitchen drawer, light wood greasy and darkened from dirt and soot. Rogue's fingers are dirty, she searches for something to wipe them off on. There's Logan thick flannel jacket on the table, shiny with oil spots. Rogue wipes her hand on it, reckoning it won't get any dirtier.

 

Rogue comes to the window and sits down the windowsill. Logan is chopping wood violently, the splinters flying around like shrapnel. It would be easier with claws, but Logan sticks to the ax, nodules on his cheeks bulging. It makes his face wider, he's like a cobra inflating its hood. Rogue stirs whiskey in her coffee as there's no sugar, watching Logan and frowning.

 

When Rogue left Logan for Remy, she didn't feel like doing a bad thing at all. After Logan returned from his ride into the mountains for his lost memories, he changed. He became even moodier than ever, drank in the evening alone or took Cyclops bicycle causing Cyclops' angry hollering around and went into the city to meet with someone Rogue didn't know. Later on, Rogue learned Logan searched for the information about Silverfox, the mutant he once loved. Luckily, she was dead.

 

It was a terrible thing to do, but Rogue was glad that woman was dead. Logan refused to speak to Rogue about what's happening, he only told her to keep his problems out of her head, and snapped at Rogue when she insisted on talking about it. In the night Logan screamed from nightmares, and the only one he talked about it, was Xavier, and even Xavier complained to Hank McCoy that Logan kept his mind so tight it was hard to find a solution for his problem.

 

Rogue remembered the feeling. She felt forsaken, and she felt lonely. The only man she could touch didn't want to touch her, too. She and Logan, they somehow managed with Rogue's ability. The trick was to push Rogue aside at the moment she started to taking from Logan too much. Logan regenerated quickly, and Rogue knew it aroused him, the danger in making out with her. The time had come when Logan didn't want Rogue because even the danger she brought, the taste of love and death was not enough.

 

Rogue felt lost. She wished for Logan to take her hand and to lead her through all the trouble. She didn't believe in herself anymore. Her lessons with Xavier and Jean Grey who trained Rogue to find a way to contain her powers, making her a wall in mind to block them on Rogue's wish though Rogue begged them to trap the abilities forever went to hell in a waste-basket. Rogue lost her will to live because her will to live was contained in Logan.

 

“That was a mistake, ”Raven told Rogue when after a few weeks Raven considered Rogue tolerable for a talk. “Never put all that you have in one person, especially if it is a man.”

 

“I was twenty and in love,” Rogue sat on the rock, looking at the sea underneath her feet. The sea was cold and the wind got under her coat. Raven was in a form of a policeman to big for his uniform, holding a cup of coffee. Rogue's cup of coffee stood in between her hips. “Give me the handcuff key. My wrists are aching.”

 

“You can take them off without a key,” Raven answered, sipping on her coffee. “Now do it.”

 

“My ability is about the people, not things,” Rogue protested, and Raven looked down on her, from the height of an overweighted cop in his early thirties.

 

“When find some over way. Take it as a test. Take everything is a test.”

 

“And who is to decide what it a test, and what is not?”

 

“Now – me. Someday – you.”

 

Rogue knew Raven would ignore her every complaint if she said that Rogue should get rid of the handcuff by herself. It was unfair but somehow worked out. For all Rogue's life people came to tell her they loved her, so from then on she should do what they say as though “I love you” was a magic key, a parole for unlimited power over the person.

 

Logan said “I love you” and waited for Rogue to tolerate his savage temper and moodiness. Remy said, “I love you”, and wanted Rogue to be a partner in his every crime, to take the blame on her if necessary. Xavier said, “You are always welcome here,” and waited for Rogue to be a good mutant instead of a confident one. Even Magneto wanted Rogue as a fighter and hoodman, and the first thing Raven taught Rogue was to know what do you want and what do you believe in.

 

The door slams open and Logan enters, carrying a pile of wood he threw on the carpet, breathing heavily. Rogue know the sound, it isn't because Logan feels tired as he doesn't, it's because he is angry as hell. Rogue watches Logan silently from the window. Back in time, she would ask him if he was okay, what did he think about it made him so nervous. Because he told her he loved her and because of that, she must care of him. Not overwise.

 

“Now take the wood from the floor. I'll stumble on it and break something,” Rogue says. Logan gives her a savage look.

 

“Don't tell me what to do. I'm not taking you here for you to think about him.”

 

“You are not taking me here to think about you either,” Rogue jumps off the windowsill. “You can't read minds. Don't act like you can.”

 

“I'm not a fucking idiot!”

 

“You've spent eighteen months of your life leaving me alone to find information about your dead lover,” Rogue speaks coldly and decisively. “She was dead, she didn't need you. I was alive and I needed you badly.”

 

“You needed me because you wanted me to be your daddy. I was not your fucking daddy, I was nobody else's daddy. I was your man and I have the problems of my own.”

 

Logan kicks the wood so hard it hits the table and ricochets into the wall, making the cupboards tremble and the dishes ring.

 

“Don't lie,” Logan turns to Rogue. “You wanted me to do everything for you and for myself like I was a fucking God or whoever Professor thinks himself to be. I lost my life, my wife, all my memories and recovered them in like one goddamn day in a shitty weather with the whole bunch of nightmares!”

 

Logan's voice must echo on the tops of the mountains. It irritates Rogue to see him this angry, with all those veins around his neck and arms. Rogue puts her mug on the table accurately, making as less sound as possibly, raises her eyes to Logan and says:

 

“You are not an animal. Stop hollering. I can hear you. You are not an animal, so stop acting like one. It's fucking disgusting and it scares the shit out of me. You know what I am capable of when scared and angry.”

 

“What are you going to do?” Logan puts his arms into his waist. His face is still red, at least he doesn't shout anymore. “Like, fucking kill me?”

 

“Like yes,” Rogue crosses her arms at her chest. “You didn't talk to me, you know. Didn't try to. And I was twenty, and I couldn't read minds. Of course, I acted like a child because I was one.”

 

“You were grown-up enough to fuck me. And you weren't grown-up enough to just fucking leave me alone?”

 

“I left you alone if you remember. After I got acquainted with Remy LeBeau.”

 

“Like his name, huh? Repeat it, maybe he can't hear you from here.”

 

“Vanessa Silverfox, that's what her name,” Rogue snaps. “Don't lie to me. You loved her and mourned her. That's why you ignored me.”

 

Logan says nothing. He pushes the sofa hard at it flies to the corner of the room, bumping into it and squeaking with all of its joints. Logan leans down and starts to collect chopped wood in silence. He pierces the distant pieces of wood with his claws to draw them nearer. Rogue takes the mug from the table and makes a sip.

  
  


5  
  


 

It takes Logan a few minutes to stomp the chopped wood into the furnace and lit a fire. He does it with a lighter, old yellowish papers and quiet but vigorous swearing. Rogue watches him standing on his four before the furnace from the sofa stuck in the corner of the room. She feels pity for him and knows that if she shows it, Logan won't stop cursing for an hour or so.

 

Rogue sighs and says, twisting the mug on her knee, “Logan, you are the most incapable of love and loving person I've ever met. You tell me you are not an animal, and I know you are not. Still, sometimes you were more like a bear to me. Or a wolf. Not a person to live with, to be honest.”

 

“You tell this shit like it isn't something I know,” Logan squats before the furnace where the fire is raising slowly, smoke drawn into the pipe in the wall. Smoke starts to get into the room, and Logan closes the furnace door. “You know what? For about hundred years every time I wanted to live like a man, the people I cared about were killed. Every fucking time.”

 

“What?”

 

“You wanted the story of my own?” Logan stands up, crossing his arms at his chest like Rogue did before. “Okay. I'll tell you the story. As soon as I get the whiskey.”

 

“Isn't it a little bit too late for the stories?”

 

“It's never too late. I owe you one story, so you'll get it. Now.”

 

Logan drags the sofa back to the center of the room. He drags it with Rogue sitting on it, so she gets and goes to the kitchen to take the glasses.

 

“Sit down already,” Logan commands from the living-room. “I'll take 'em.”

 

“I know where the glasses are and I am taking them.”  
  
Rogue opens the cupboard doors, standing on the tiptoes and looking for the glasses. There are only mugs in there, Rogue wants to search in the counter. Logan's arms embrace her, his face deep into her hair. He starts a little along with her, like in the bar, bit nothing happens.

 

“Logan, don't,” Rogue says, clenching her fists. “I will hurt you badly if you won't stop this.”

 

“Remember you making me watch that star battle movie?” Logan asks, letting Rogue go. Rogue turns her face to him, her back pressed to the counter. He looks no older than seven years ago: the same long, pointy at the end nose, small mouth, furry eyebrows and eyes of a mad husky, drunk with the sky and snow.

 

“Star Wars.”  
  
Logan nods. His neck is long and tanned, Rogue outstretches her hand to touch the reddish skin. Logan jerks his head, yet he doesn't stop her fingers from running up and down the sinew of both sides of his neck.

 

“Yeah, that one. I fell asleep when the guys started fighting with the colored lamps,” Logan smiles rapidly, and Rogue smiles back into his face. The smile is short and summerlike, it feels like a kiss and it hurts. Rogue knows it's the time to stop, stopping is no more a good idea for her.

 

“Lightsabers,” she mutters under her breath, and Logan circles her lips with his thumb, his breath becoming quiet and abrupt.

 

“The second part was even worse.”

 

“I got it from your snorting.”

 

It's hard to stand, to think. It rises in her memory all at once, those hands, embracing her, those hips, pressing her into the seat of the car, the spine shaking in convulsions from the single touch of her arms and the voice wheezing, “You can't kill me, go fucking on!” He was so crazy, and Rogue was off her head, they were so irresponsible and lived like they only lived then.

 

“I remember the princess telling the pilot she loved him. He said I know.”  
  


“And what?”

 

“I still love you. Thats' what you should know.”

 

“No, you don't. You've lived without me for all this time and you were fine,” Rogue rushes aside from his hands. Logan grabs her wrists first, but Rogue gives him a look and he lets her go.

 

“You've broken up with me. What am I to you? Your pet? I'm not running around for you,” Logan snaps at her.

 

“You could try to talk to me,” Rogue stops at the end of the counter, slamming the cupboard door shut, as it nearly hits her head.

 

“You were doing the French guy. Because you were a nasty bitch to me,” Logan follows Rogue, pointing his finger into her face. Rogue hits his hand and points her finger into his face nearly poking his cheek.

 

“You were a nasty bitch. You've never cared about my feelings.”

 

“Cut it off,” Logan yells, and Rogue yells at him back.

 

“Oh, shut up! What a woman can stand a man who talks more to his war buddies than her?”

 

“You've never told it to me.”

 

“What would change if I did?”

 

“I would talk to you.”

 

“Why would you? Aren't you too manly for this?”

 

“I'm manly enough to still love you,” Logan says with sincere contempt, and Rogue rolls up her eyes, pressing her hands to her face.

 

“I guess, I still know that, James. So what? So fucking what?”

 

“I don't give a fuck about what you know. You know I love you and what, you think it's funny? A kind of a game, or what? I've seen you in my dreams for three years. Nearly every night I've seen you sleeping on my elbow, asking me to bring you “co-cola”. I told you, yes, puppy, I'll bring you co-cola. And when I woke up without you.”

 

Rogue gasps, looking at her boots. Logan's boots stand next to her, shoulder width. There's growling in his voice, and sharp glass, and anger, and something that makes her froze all inside and lost the words she wants to throw him into the face.

 

“This hurts,” Rogue confesses, looking Logan into the eyes.

 

“This can't hurt you. You have nothing to be hurt. Are you... Are you crying?”

 

“Guess.”

 

6

  
  


Rogue locks up in the bathroom. It's dirty yellow, with smudges of mold between the tiles on the wall. Rogue turns on the water and rubbs her face. She wants to go back to the city as long as he doesn't want to go back to the base. Logan is standing behind the bathroom door like a dog kicked out of the room by its master.

 

“Get out of there,” Logan says.

 

“Come in and make me,” Rogue answers. She puts her hand into the sink and scratches the top of her head and temples. There are dark circles under her eyes, her hair looks like dark rotten hay. She slowly loses her grip on reality, it is whiskey in coffee that makes it harder. She's hardly eaten from the morning, she's a bit sick.

 

Logan doesn't respond. Rogue for a moment Rogue believes he backs up, but when he grabs the handle and pulls it. The door answers with a knock, Rogue locked it from the inside.

 

“Whom are you fucking hiding from in my own house?”

 

There are howling intonations in Logan's voice. They always are when he is angry, or puzzled, or both.

 

“Go fuck yourself, Logan!”

 

Rogue puts the toilet sit down, puts up the lid and sits down, abutting her elbows into her knees. She looks at a gray rug underneath her feet wondering if she's ready to puke on it or not. The handle jerks for one last time and stops still. Rogue hears a chopping sound like a blunt knife hitting the meat.

 

“Are you going to slice through your own door?”

 

“Open up,” Logan demands. “And I won't.”

 

“Okay. I don't really give a fuck about watcha do, honey. I used to give some fucks about it, now I don't. The beauty never knew the beast will always the beast, if not on the outside, then in the inside.”

 

“That's sentimental bullshit. I don't remember you talking like this.”

 

“Not as much sentimental bullshit as your “I hurt all I love” and “she died because of me,” Rogue leans back on the wall, rubbing her forehead. “Go away, Logan. I don't want you to be here.”

 

She is ready to listen to his “I don't give a fuck about what you feel”, there's none. Logan stands behind the door silently, with the slight screeching means that his claws are going back into his fists.

 

“You don't know even the part of the story,” he says. Rogue sighs, closing her eyes. “I don't even want to.”

 

“Here you a briefing: I killed the man I thought was my father. I fought a thousand wars with my dumbass of a brother. I got adamantium poured underneath my skin, it was heated like hell. For all this time, I used to be on my own. When I met Vanessa, I thought it'd be in some other way. It didn't work out.”

 

“I guess so,” Rogue shrugs her shoulders. She stares at the tiled walls, the shower curtain over the bathtub was once blue. Now it dark and greasy, and plastic is broken on the bending lines.

 

“And now you make me standing here, talking about this bullshit I don't like to remember,” Logan proceeds. “I never told it to Vanessa. Yeah, I remembered her. I have more things to remember, I lived for more than a hundred years. Even more women. Why would you care about them?”

 

“You don't really care about them. You care only for you. And now you make me listen for the things I didn't ask for.”

 

Rogue stands up and goes to the bathroom window. It's locker is rusty, still, she has remains of Magneto stuff in her. She keeps it for the darker times, yet it doesn't take much to move the locker. Logan asks her the fuck she is doing when Rogue gets through the window on the shaky cornice. She can try jumping, it's no guarantee she won't break a leg or an arm and she needs Logan to recover, a thing she can spare.

 

Rogue walks her back to the wall to the broad roof over the terrace. The roof is covered in withered leaves, the chutes are stuffed with them. There's a smell of rot all over the roof, luckily Rogue smelt worse things. When she's two steps from the roof, the cornice fall down. Rogue jumps, her knees hit the roof, she makes so much noise she realizes she has to move faster.

 

She rolls to the end of the roof, grabs the chut, her fingers soaked in the rotten dirt. Rogue swears and hangs on from the roof. It's not so high from here, she unclenches the fingers and jumps off on the porch. The front door opens and Logan rushes out. Rogue makes a block with both her arms.

 

“Don't you even...” she starts in an angry voice. Logan looks at her from under the eyes, his nostrils are moving. “You know what I can do to you. Don't stand in my way.”

 

“I didn't stand in your way even when you walked away from me with that little bastard. You think I'm a beast? Ok. I am. I am Wolverine, no prince. I took you here because I wanted it in the way it used to be. I'm not dragging you back.”

 

“Why, for example?” Rogue feels a slight touch of curiosity.

 

“What you can't keep without dragging ain't yours.”

 

Logan sighs, leaning on the wall. Rogue puts her hands down, and sighs, too. The wind is messing with her hair, she had to press them to hear head not to have the whole bunch in her eyes.

 

“You let me go with Remy like you didn't care.”

 

“If you walked away, he had something I didn't. What's the point in keeping you if you were breaking away already?”

 

“Ah. Logan,” Rogue shakes her head. “That's so stupid.”

 

“Like hell it is.”

 

“Neither me nor you. The whole thing, I mean. You know, sometimes I see you in my sleep. You always look angry.”

 

“That’s okay,” Logan agrees. “I’m always angry. You know why’d I remember Silverfox? She saw me as a man, average one. No claws, no healing, just a man who got maybe more, maybe less than he deserved.”

 

“You think I didn’t see it?” Rogue crossed her arms. “I saw you as a first mutant I met. You had a bad temper, and you were no monster. I kinda liked you with the time being. You were no animal, Logan. You were always a man who paid no darnn attention to me.”

 

“C’mon,” Logan opens the door. “Let’s have a drink. I hate it sober.”

 

“You can’t even go drunk for real.”

 

“I can try.”

 

Logan walks away as the door is left open, screeching in the hinges. Rogue has Logan’s car behind her, she can make it move with no keys, as Mystique taught her well. She puts her hands on her waist at taps the top of her boot on the ground. Yes, she can leave, but if she leaves now, she never knows what happens next.  
  
  


 


End file.
